Man, the longer I'm at this site, the more I realise all these inconsistencies. Animorphs was not as great as I thought it was beforehand.
They aren't inconsistencies, they are creative license, every piece of fiction takes some, especially a series about parasitic aliens fighting a secret war against animal morphing teenagers armed with alien technology. Like cerulean said you can nit pick anything.
I think its not so much that the animals were displayed as too powerful because its never 100% clear what the power and ability levels of the aliens are. I think gorilla, grizzly and tiger would definitely be able to take on a Hork each to start, and then as time went on their experience would allow them to take on multiple foes.
And someone mentioned how Hork-Bajir were needed on other planets by other vissers. Maybe all of the good hork-bajir warriors are sent to the serious battles and the ones sent to earth, which is a secret invasion where the yeerks so obviously outmatch us and they aren't actually fighting any battles, are just the crap bajirs no other yeerk army needed. And out of those **** hork-bajir sent to earth visser 3/1 used the best for individual important assignments so the ones actually assembled in large masses were even less skilled. So when the animorphs are facing 10-15 to 1 they are facing the absolute most pathetic hork-bajir controllers the universe could spit out.
But one thing that did always bug me was Tobias. He didnt go battle morph often but when he did he chose a flippin Hork-Bajir? At least with the others you can make a case that a different animal skill set gave them exploitable advantages over HB's but another HB really has nothing
Oh and by the end of the series the animorphs go into a battle with the experience of fighting hundreds of hork-bajir, the hork-bajir they are fighting have zero experience fighting animals.